Tower Transit


Tower Transit is a Transport for London contracted bus operator operating mainly in west and east London. It is a subsidiary of SeaLink Travel Group.

History

In June 2013, Transit Systems purchased First London's Atlas Road, Lea Interchange and Westbourne Park garages with 24 London bus routes and 412 buses. Also included were contracts to operate three routes that had yet to commence.
In October 2014, Tower Transit purchased Impact Group which operates 130 small buses for local authorities and schools out of depots in Ealing and Croydon. This was sold in August 2018 to the HCT Group.
In January 2020, SeaLink Travel Group acquired Tower Transit and Transit Systems.

Garages

Tower Transit operates two bus garages.

Lea Interchange (LI)

As at July 2020, Lea Interchange garage operates routes 58, 236, 262, 308, 339, 473, 488, D8, W14, W15.

History

The garage opened in 2007 to replace the Waterden Road, Stratford garage that closed as part of the development of the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Waterden Road was opened in 1996 after a number of tender wins.
Lea Interchange began operating route 69 on 30 April 2016. CT Plus took over operation of route 26 and route N26 on 25 June 2016. Go Ahead took over operation of the route 212 and route 444 on 07 March 2020.

Westbourne Park (X)

As of December 2019, Westbourne Park garage operates routes 13, 23, 28, 218, 228, 328, 452, N28 and N97

History

Westbourne Park Garage was part of the re-construction programme undertaken by London Transport in the early 1980s. As was common practice at the time, the new garage replaced two older garages - the small and inadequate Middle Row, and the larger former trolley bus garage at Stonebridge. The new garage, which opened in 1981 in Great Western Road, and is of unusual design in that it is built beneath the elevated A40 Westway, the roof of the garage being profiled to match the concrete flyover. Originally, the garage allocation consisted of AEC Routemasters, and a small number of Daimler Fleetlines to B20 "quiet" specification for route 18. These were supplemented in 1983 by a number of Leyland Titan for comparative trials. A new 180 metre bus parking area was built on a raised platform over railway lines as part of the Crossrail project opening in 2017.
Metroline took over the operation of route 295 on 31 October 2015. On 5 March 2016, Westbourne Park took over the operation of route N97 from London United. London Bus Route C3 will be taken over by Tower Transit in October 2020

Former Garages

Atlas Road

On 1 October 2011 this garage opened when part of Westbourne Park garage was closed to make way for Crossrail construction works, with operation of routes 28, 31, 328, N28 and N31 transferred. Atlas Road operated as an outstation for Westbourne Park, so buses are seen on Atlas Road routes and vice versa. With the completion of Crossrail works, all routes returned to Westbourne Park in June 2017 with Atlas Road retained as a maintenance centre. It closed in October 2017, being taken over by London United.

Fleet

As at May 2015, the fleet consisted of 437 buses.